Bitter Sweet Harvest

by Chan Ling Yap

  The minutes passed. She looked at the clock impatiently. A click sounded at the other end. A faint voice asked hesitantly. “Yes! Who is it?”

  “Mei Yin? Is that you? I have spoken to An Mei. I have told her to stay in Oxford and await your arrival. And I think I have said enough to convince her.”

  Chapter 2

  An Mei paced the floor. Stuffing her hands into the pockets of her trousers, she stared guiltily at the flight indicator board. “Any minute now,” she mumbled to herself, “they should be at the arrival hall.” She looked around to check that she was stationed in a spot where they would be able to see her easily, close by the neon-lit sign for the meeting point. She had been biting her fingernails and they were raw and tingling. How was she going to greet her parents with these hands, she thought to herself. It was an old habit, a habit that grew out of those very troubled times when her parents were separated. She sighed. At least, she thought, they were all back together again as one big happy family. Could she dare risk doing anything that might cause the family to split apart again? An earlier short conversation on the phone with her brother, Wei Han, had given her little cause for comfort. “You must not think only about yourself in these very troubled times, not when father has lost so much of his business,” he had said. Accusing her of being selfish, he had slammed down the phone but not before saying that he would be coming to Oxford as soon as he could get permission from his professor. Now pacing back and forth with growing anxiety, An Mei acknowledged that she had been selfish. How could she have been so thoughtless to even consider loading them with another worry?

  At that moment, a flight announcement boomed out. Groups of people began to filter through the barrier. She felt a sudden crush of bodies around her as people struggled to get the best view of the exiting passengers. Some broke free to rush forward, arms flung out in embrace; others were more reticent in their reception. Where were they, she wondered anxiously She suddenly felt a rush of longing and love. She could not contain her excitement. She had not seen her parents for nearly a year, not since last summer.

  “An Mei!”

  She turned towards the source of the voice. “Aunt Nelly,” she broke into a run. “Oh Aunt Nelly, how are you?” she asked in Cantonese. She embraced the little rotund lady dressed in a quilted jacket with a Mandarin collar so vigorously that she knocked her spectacles askew. She remembered the jacket. A ‘Mao Tse Tung’ jacket, her aunt had claimed when she bought it back from Hong Kong some years ago. “Very fashionable!” But she had not remembered her aunt as being so short.

  “Fine, fine. I came through first,” she responded in Cantonese, her spoken English being rather poor. Your mother and father will be here shortly. They had to wait for the luggage. I left them to it. I’m no use with bags, too old and too weak to even try,” she said chuckling. Wrapping An Mei’s arms around her waist, she continued, “And, I want a word with you first. Your mum asked me.” She held on to An Mei. “Don’t talk to your father about Hussein. Jenny told us. Just don’t. We’ll work something out. We, your mum and I, would like to meet him and then we’ll talk.”

  Even as she said these words, Nelly was not sure what course of action might be possible. What could she say? Ming Kong had been distraught when he found his stores vandalised and torched. She felt that nothing would ever persuade him to let his daughter marry a Malay man. “Things will never be the same after May the Thirteenth,” he had said. “I’ll not trust them again. I thought they were my friends. I worked with them!”

  “But Aunt Nelly,” An Mei began to protest.

  “Promise me. Not a word until we have sorted things out,” admonished Nelly. They saw Mei Yin and Ming Kong coming towards them, pushing a trolley piled high with suitcases.

  “Here they are. Remember what I had just said. Shhh,” she added for caution.

  An Mei broke free from Nelly and ran to her parents, all thoughts of Hussein momentarily wiped from her mind.

  *****

  Mei Yin stepped eagerly into the hallway. A steep, narrow, carpeted stairway led up to the two floors above. She inhaled deeply the potpourri of scents, vanilla and rose vying with the unmistakable whiff of new paint. “So delightfully cool,” she said. “The air feels fresh. Everything feels fresh, even the smell of paint.” She followed the weak ray of sunlight that had seeped through to the hallway from the door on the right, and entered the living room. “I like it,” she exclaimed, her eyes wide, taking in the bare wooden floor and the white-washed walls of the long narrow room.

  Relief showed on An Mei’s face. “I know it is small, but Mum, you did say to find something that was... that is inexpensive. This is a Victorian terrace cottage. They are rather long and narrow. But it is well located. We can walk into Oxford within minutes. The house backs on to a playing field and beyond that, is the river. There is a wonderful river-side walk that takes you through a park.”

  Mei Yin turned to look at An Mei, her eyes lingering with affection on her daughter. “Yes, dear girl I like it and very much so. Don’t apologise. There is no need. It is certainly wonderful to be able to move into a house so quickly and certainly better than the small hotel we stayed at when we first arrived.”

  “I thought that you might not like the house. It was a mess before when it was let out to students, but the owner has renovated it completely. Just here,” An Mei pointed to the middle of the room, “there was a wall. He had it taken down to make the room more spacious.”

  They did not notice that Ming Kong had followed them into the room. He looked around him, taking stock of the length and width of the room. “It will certainly do for the moment.” He strode over to the bay windows that looked over the road and peeped out. The narrow road was lined on both sides with parked cars.

  “It’s not bad. Not bad at all. Good job An Mei,” he said approvingly, ruffling her hair. “I know it was a tall order to ask you to find us accommodation in the time we gave you. Anyway, you have chosen well. Location is important when buying properties. And this is good: within walking distance to the town centre. Tightening our belts and economising again will not be a bad thing in our new situation. We have to start afresh once again.”

  An Mei slipped her arm around her father’s waist and smiled, two dimples dipped and her lips parted.

  “Good girl,” said Nelly crowding into the room. She was proud of her charge and reached out her hand to stroke An Mei’s face.

  “Hey, I am twenty-four years old and have been here in the UK for over two years! Right now, I feel like a child again with everyone addressing me like I’m ten years old!” She felt a surge of affection for her parents and her aunt Nelly.

  She moved to the front window and looked out. Not many people were around. A group of young mothers with pushchairs and prams had gathered to chat, taking up the whole of the narrow pavement. She reflected on the hushed conversation she’d had in the hotel with her mother and aunt just after their arrival. A shadow fell across her face and tears glistened in the corner of her eyes. Quickly she dabbed them away. She felt her mother’s hands on her shoulder and she leaned back towards her, luxuriating in the comforting warmth of her mother’s arms. “I’m alright,” she said. “Come, I’ll show you the rest of the house.”

  *****

  Mei Yin ducked and bent low to avoid hitting her head on the low doorway that led into the converted roof space. Once in the room she straightened up. The room stretched from the front of the house to the back. The ceiling sloped down at one end. Windows flanked both ends of the room, filling it with light. “We can probably make this into a bedroom with a study area at the far end. The three larger rooms in the middle floor below will be the bedrooms. The fourth is just a box room, so it could probably be made into a storeroom or a small office. What do you think?” She looked at her husband, noting the puffiness round his tired eyes. She wished she could inject some enthusiasm into him.

  Ming Kong nodded absent-mindedly to Mei Yin’s ideas for the house. He was engrossed in his own
plans of how to start anew in England. His mind twirled and turned over the meeting schedules already lined up with his business associates.

  “Fine, fine. I’ll leave it to you.” He walked out of the room and headed to the stairway. A flurry of footsteps caught his attention. He caught a glimpse of the fast retreating back of An Mei. The bathroom door slammed behind her. Then the hurried, urgent sound of bolts drawn tight.

  “Hmm! Must have eaten something bad!” He hesitated and then called out. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, yes”, came a muffled reply.

  Ming Kong nodded and made his way down the stairs.

  Inside the bathroom, An Mei sat on the side of the bath. She listened intently to her father’s receding footsteps. She had received an urgent message while her mother and father were touring the house. A young boy, no older than eight years old, had rung the doorbell, checked who she was and then pushed a paper message rolled up in a ball into her hands before rushing away. Now, sitting on the bath, she unrolled the dirty piece of paper. “Meet me at noon tomorrow at The Bear,” it said.

  *****

  She stepped into The Bear. A group of students were huddled in a corner, engaged in serious conversation, their faces animated by the force of their arguments. Almost all the tables in the pub were filled. Young couples, old men, shoppers and office workers — with drinks in hand — were seated at the scatter of wooden tables and trestles that gave it an almost rustic charm. Cigarette smoke filled the air; the odour mingled with the stale smell of fermented hops and malted barley.

  An Mei remembered what her friend, Casey, had said when she first brought her, together with Hussein, to the pub. “This is one of the oldest pubs in Oxford. Put your nose to the table and you can smell the years of ingrained alcohol. Have you had beer before?” immediately thrusting a foaming mug at An Mei. “You have to practise.” An Mei smiled recalling her failure to like beer and her lack of tolerance to it. “You are red as a boiled lobster,” Hussein had said rescuing her from her beer drinking ordeal and drinking it all in one gulp.

  Someone tapped her on the shoulder. She started, flustered and on edge.

  “It’s me. I am sorry I’m late. Let’s go and sit there over in the corner where we can talk,” Hussein said, ushering her towards a round corner table set at the far side of the fireplace.

  “I don’t have much time,” An Mei said. She spoke rapidly, her words spilling out of her. “They are unpacking and arranging the house. I came out to get some food for lunch. Aunt Nelly is with me, but she has gone ahead to the Chinese takeaway at the corner. I hope she’ll be there for some time. She might, because she misses home and speaking Chinese; so she will most likely take the chance to chat, but we need to be quick.”

  “Slow down, slow down,” he said. “Take a deep breath.” He waited as she tried to calm herself and to catch her breath.

  “I came to tell you that it has been decided,” said Hussein. “I have just a week left before I take the BOAC flight to Kuala Lumpur and then home to Kemun. I have bought an open ticket for you. Take it.”

  A lock of hair fell over his eyes and he pushed it back impatiently. His ponytail swished as he turned abruptly to look behind before he urgently drew his chair closer to her. “Please come. I’ll look after you. I will talk to my parents and persuade them. It cannot be as bad as Jenny says. My parents have never refused me anything.”

  He took her hand and continued, “This fight between the Chinese and Malays is a temporary madness, stirred-up by unscrupulous politicians. It will not last and things will be as before. There will be peace, prosperity and progress in the country. This is what I have studied so hard for. Remember how well we work together as a team? Remember the march in London against America’s bombing of Vietnam and how much we achieved in sending someone over to Chicago for the first American national women’s liberation conference? We’ll work together again and, together, we’ll re-build trust among the peoples of Malaysia.”

  His eyes shone with conviction and An Mei felt herself mesmerised by his words. She knew his charisma, his ability to hold a crowd, the eloquence he’d shown so often in debates, but these words were now for her and her alone.

  “Maybe you are right,” she replied. She was confused, as she switched between the horrors her parents and Nelly had described to her and the optimism of Hussein’s words. “I just don’t know how to break it to my father.”

  He placed his other hand over her tightly folded ones and turned them palm up. He unfolded the tightly clenched fingers and drew them up to his lips. He kissed the fingers one by one. An Mei could not bear to look up, to let him see her tears or to look into his eyes.

  “Come back to Malaysia,” he repeated. “I need you.”

  An Mei sat silent. Her mind was muddled with conflicting desires. She wanted to be with Hussein, but she also wanted to please her parents. She withdrew her hands and pressed her fingers to her temple. “Don’t! I want to be with you, but I just do not know how it can be achieved.”

  “Would you like me to talk to your parents?”

  “No!” Her voice rose in panic. “I’ll speak to you later. I must rush now.” She stood up, toppling the seat behind her. Someone caught it. She turned guiltily. “Aunt Nelly!”

  “Is this Hussein?” Nelly asked in Cantonese, her eyes taking note of the slim, tall, dark young man before her and cringing at the sight of his ponytail and flared trousers. Jenny had described him well, she thought, A wry smile pinched the corners of her lips. He was definitely good-looking but Ming Kong would certainly object to the hairstyle.

  “I’ve heard so much about you from An Mei,” Hussein said as he held out his hand, hesitant and unsure of his reception.

  Nelly grasped it and cautiously returned his smile. An Mei had told her about Hussein. She talked about him through the early hours of the night in the attic room they now shared. An Mei had always confided in her. There was little doubt that An Mei was distraught over the likelihood that she would have to give up her first love, the boyfriend who had become her soul mate over the past two years.

  “My aunty,” said An Mei for a lack of any thing to say. “She has looked after me since... since I was a baby.”

  “I know. You’ve told me many times,” replied Hussein. “Please help us out,” he appealed to Nelly.

  Hussein could not read Nelly’s face. He grabbed his jacket from the chair, rising, “I’ll go now. I will be waiting for your answer.” He leaned over to kiss An Mei and then checked himself. He knew that it would be considered an act of impropriety, an act of disrespect for elders, something just not done in Malaysia, and Nelly had only just come from Malaysia. He groaned in frustration as he made his way out of the pub. He realised that was how their future would be in Malaysia — the constant need to keep their feelings in check and not show them in public. Little had his father realised that in Oxford he would pick up western customs and ways that would not please him.

  *****

  An Mei’s face was a bright red. When Hussein leaned over, she had panicked and had turned her face away. Now walking home with Nelly, she noted the casual way in which couples linked hands and kissed on the streets. She glanced sidelong at her aunt, noting her surprise and disconcerted expression. She remembered her first kiss. She had exclaimed, “Not here! Someone will see us.”

  “And so?” Hussein had asked, his eyes twinkling with amazement. He gestured to a couple sat at a bench some paces away from them. “Look at what they are doing!”

  “Universal campus behaviour,” Casey her friend had commented as she showed An Mei around the University. “I know, it is not like this at the University of Malaya, but it does not mean that they are not doing it. Just not in public.”

  An Mei slowed her pace to match Nelly’s and took from her the bag of carefully packed silver-foil containers, all marked in Chinese characters: siew yok, tai har, boh choi, roast pork, large prawns and spinach. “I’ll have to remember to walk slower,” she said, tucking her othe
r arm around Nelly to give her a hug. “Will you help us?”

  “Aiyah!” exclaimed Nelly. “Tai see yew man-man seong. Such big matters really need careful thinking,” she said, tapping her head, “and I cannot think in the street. Anyway, I must consult with your mother. I’ve not had time to really talk to her.”

  Since last night, and especially after seeing the two of them together in the pub, Nelly had wanted to ask An Mei a question that she found difficult to phrase with delicacy. “An Mei,” she said softly, slowing her steps until they were standing by the iron railings that skirted the botanical gardens. “Are you ... have you slept with Hussein?”

  An Mei gulped, almost dropping the bag of food. Her knees buckled and she leant against the railings, the cold hard grills digging into her back. Her eyes clouded with fear and shame.

  “Chan hai cham-loh! This is really bad! What would your father say? Aiyah!”

  “Are you going to tell him?”

  “No, no I cannot; I must not! He is already a broken man despite the brave front he puts on. His fortunes have gone through so much upheaval that it is wearing him out. No, I can only talk this over with your mother.”

  *****

  Dusk drew in, casting long murky shadows over the back of the house. Nelly made her way to the rear of the narrow garden, threading carefully around the unfamiliar plants and foliage that spilled over on to the path. A profusion of roses in full bloom, with big, almost cabbage-like petals, perfumed the cool night air. Mei Yin followed. She slid open the bolt and the door swung open, its rusty hinges creaking in protest. They stepped out on to the single track that separated the garden from the playing field beyond. Further on was the path that would lead them to the riverside. They had not been there before. The sky darkened perceptibly, enveloping them in darkness. Mei Yin’s face was cast in doubt.